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Jealousy or taking a realistic long view?

Skewed view? Yes. Realistic view? Not so much.

You're making a lot of assumptions to arrive at your point. First of all, you're assuming that this house will be built in some rural area, as opposed to being built more vertically (as a lot of modern homes are built) in an already established area. Lots of neighborhoods in major metropolitan areas are having their older, smaller, aging homes razed and replaced with homes that are more modern, and while having the same footprint, have more square footage).

Next, you're completely missing all of the energy efficient and environmentally friendly building designs and materials. Efficiency in almost all household products has skyrocketed in recent years. Compare the energy efficiency of a modern furnace or air conditioner to one from 30 years ago. It's a compelling difference. Once you start to factor in insulation and vapor barriers, lighting choices, HVAC, and many other factors, you can squeeze a surprising amount of "work" out of a relatively small amount of energy to run a home. Once you start going on about an owner filling his/her home with too much "stuff'" for yours (or George Carlin's) taste, you reveal what's really bugging you. It's fine if you choose a more minimalist lifestyle. No worries, dude. No one's judging that, or saying there's anything wrong with that. But stop throwing rocks if others choose not to (and on that note, nowhere does the poster claim that he/she is doing that.....again....an assumption on your part).

Look, it just seems like you're wound kinda tight on this issue, and are just ready to react to anyone who sees things differently than you. You're like a hammer looking for a nail. Just breath, dude, it'll be OK.

Oh, and the article you linked to with "proof" that Warren Buffet agrees with you, actually refers to this OP ED piece that Buffett wrote, in which he clearly is more making the case for the inequality of TAXES on people in different income brackets. At no point does he suggest that there's anything wrong with some folks making more (even if it's a LOT more) than other people. I respect that you choose to work for a non-profit, and I love that it is one that is centered on helping others who are not as fortunate. You ain't gonna get any shit from me for that. I think it's great to help others, and I often do so myself, not because I expect anything in return, but because it just feels right, and it's how I'm wired. However, if you're having these feelings that future generations are going to be somehow burdened because some folks today make too much money, I gotta tell ya that I sure don't get where that logic is coming from.

...there will still be cooks, stylists, hairdressers, ...).

No there won't.

Just the other day I ate some savory pancakes before going to my hairdresser for a cut.

When I got home, my girlfiend (not a typo) took one look at my hair and left me. But that's ok because I just got a REAL girlfriend, and she is AWESOME!!!.

European countries have their own struggles. If you think there aren't problems in Europe, you aren't looking.

Spain Recoils as Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins for a Next Meal

Spain certainly isn't alone. As to the US, the food stamp program is setting records. That must be going somewhere.

I find it interesting that you write, "when our men walked on the moon." Are you claiming to be American?

Interesting sentence, let's break it down:

Grocery stores are a bit rare in the ghetto, and those few which exist usually charge exorbitant prices while providing very little in the way of variety (and don't ask about the produce.)

First, let's tackle this one:

Grocery stores are a bit rare in the ghetto

First off, where are the bulk of food stamp benefits going, to "the ghetto" or to millions and millions of struggling Americans in the suburbs?

Second - "Grocery stores are a bit rare"? Are you sure?

Third - "and those few which exist usually charge exorbitant prices while providing very little in the way of variety":

Within a couple of miles of almost any urban neighborhood, “you can get basically any type of food,” said Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation, lead author of one of the studies. “Maybe we should call it a food swamp rather than a desert,” he said.

Source: Food Deserts and Obesity Role Challenged in Studies

Poor neighborhoods, Dr. Lee found, had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile. But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile.

Source: Food Deserts and Obesity Role Challenged in Studies

Finally, "(and don't ask about the produce.)" - why not? is it because, as I suspect, it isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be?

In one neighborhood in Camden, N.J., where 80 percent of children are eligible for a free school lunch, children bought empanadas, sodas and candy at a grocer, while adults said they had no trouble finding produce. Wedged in among fast food restaurants, convenience stores, sit-down restaurants, take-out Chinese and pizza parlors were three places with abundant produce: Pathmark and Save-A-Lot supermarkets and a produce stand.

Do you know what it means to qualify for a "free lunch"? It means that 1/3rd of the child's daily meals are provided by a school cafeteria, prepared by chefs, and designed by nutritionists. It also means they qualify for a free hot breakfast at school in the morning in many cities. That's 2/3rds of the child's meals provided for FREE, in addition to SNAP/Food Stamp programs.

Every month the federal government air lifts in millions of dollars into "ghettos" as part of a program designed to only pay for food - don't you think that would attract a few food retailers?

Interesting sentence, let's break it down:

Grocery stores are a bit rare in the ghetto, and those few which exist usually charge exorbitant prices while providing very little in the way of variety (and don't ask about the produce.)

First, let's tackle this one:

Grocery stores are a bit rare in the ghetto

First off, where are the bulk of food stamp benefits going, to "the ghetto" or to millions and millions of struggling Americans in the suburbs?

Second - "Grocery stores are a bit rare"? Are you sure?

Third - "and those few which exist usually charge exorbitant prices while providing very little in the way of variety":

Within a couple of miles of almost any urban neighborhood, “you can get basically any type of food,” said Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation, lead author of one of the studies. “Maybe we should call it a food swamp rather than a desert,” he said.

Source: Food Deserts and Obesity Role Challenged in Studies

Poor neighborhoods, Dr. Lee found, had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile. But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile.

Source: Food Deserts and Obesity Role Challenged in Studies

Finally, "(and don't ask about the produce.)" - why not? is it because, as I suspect, it isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be?

In one neighborhood in Camden, N.J., where 80 percent of children are eligible for a free school lunch, children bought empanadas, sodas and candy at a grocer, while adults said they had no trouble finding produce. Wedged in among fast food restaurants, convenience stores, sit-down restaurants, take-out Chinese and pizza parlors were three places with abundant produce: Pathmark and Save-A-Lot supermarkets and a produce stand.

Do you know what it means to qualify for a "free lunch"? It means that 1/3rd of the child's daily meals are provided by a school cafeteria, prepared by chefs, and designed by nutritionists. It also means they qualify for a free hot breakfast at school in the morning in many cities. That's 2/3rds of the child's meals provided for FREE, in addition to SNAP/Food Stamp programs.

Every month the federal government air lifts in millions of dollars into "ghettos" as part of a program designed to only pay for food - don't you think that would attract a few food retailers?

Interesting sentence, let's break it down:

Grocery stores are a bit rare in the ghetto, and those few which exist usually charge exorbitant prices while providing very little in the way of variety (and don't ask about the produce.)

First, let's tackle this one:

Grocery stores are a bit rare in the ghetto

First off, where are the bulk of food stamp benefits going, to "the ghetto" or to millions and millions of struggling Americans in the suburbs?

Second - "Grocery stores are a bit rare"? Are you sure?

Third - "and those few which exist usually charge exorbitant prices while providing very little in the way of variety":

Within a couple of miles of almost any urban neighborhood, “you can get basically any type of food,” said Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation, lead author of one of the studies. “Maybe we should call it a food swamp rather than a desert,” he said.

Source: Food Deserts and Obesity Role Challenged in Studies

Poor neighborhoods, Dr. Lee found, had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile. But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile.

Source: Food Deserts and Obesity Role Challenged in Studies

Finally, "(and don't ask about the produce.)" - why not? is it because, as I suspect, it isn't nearly as bad as you make it out to be?

In one neighborhood in Camden, N.J., where 80 percent of children are eligible for a free school lunch, children bought empanadas, sodas and candy at a grocer, while adults said they had no trouble finding produce. Wedged in among fast food restaurants, convenience stores, sit-down restaurants, take-out Chinese and pizza parlors were three places with abundant produce: Pathmark and Save-A-Lot supermarkets and a produce stand.

Do you know what it means to qualify for a "free lunch"? It means that 1/3rd of the child's daily meals are provided by a school cafeteria, prepared by chefs, and designed by nutritionists. It also means they qualify for a free hot breakfast at school in the morning in many cities. That's 2/3rds of the child's meals provided for FREE, in addition to SNAP/Food Stamp programs.

Every month the federal government air lifts in millions of dollars into "ghettos" as part of a program designed to only pay for food - don't you think that would attract a few food retailers?

Didn't say you made it up. I'm well aware of the theory - it shows up on Slashdot and elsewhere every now and then. But I don't think it's a better theory than some other random one.

Just because a few tribes do persistent hunting doesn't make it so plausible that persistence hunting is why we evolved to run. A few tribes do some other random stuff too. There could be other reasons. My theory makes about as much sense if not more so.

Warfare seems a lot more prevalent in hominids, especially humans than persistence hunting. And I'd claim the selection/evolutionary pressures are a lot higher.

Chimpanzees conduct warfare and genocide quite regularly: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/science/22chimp.html?_r=0
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2011/05/17/ugandan-chimpanzees-may-be-hunting-red-colobus-monkeys-into-extinction/
Babboons go to war: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8400000/8400019.stm
Even monkeys: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/videos/monkey-gang-turf-war/

Maybe running started with a few persistence hunters, but once a bunch of hominids started going to war running around with spears the survivors were mostly those who could run whether with spears or not. That's a far stronger evolutionary pressure than failing to chase down some meat - could survive for a fair bit by eating some grass bulbs, insects or worms which don't run that fast.

"Well-educated" implies, among other things, the ability to rationally think about one's own religion.

Fact: Many Islamic Terrorists were college educated !

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/opinion/14bergen.html?_r=0

"We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering. In the four attacks for which the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational levels is available - the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 - 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had received a college degree"

The 1993 attack on World Trade Center

"The 1993 World Trade Center attack involved 12 men, all of whom had a college education"

Of the 9/11 attack

"The 9/11 pilots, as well as the secondary planners identified by the 9/11 commission, all attended Western universities, a prestigious and elite endeavor for anyone from the Middle East. Indeed, the lead 9/11 pilot, Mohamed Atta, had a degree from a German university in, of all things, urban preservation, while the operational planner of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, studied engineering in North Carolina . We also found that two-thirds of the 25 hijackers and planners involved in 9/11 had attended college"

They were educated in colleges in America as well as in Europe. If they still can't THINK RATIONALLY after getting their college education in WESTERN UNIVERSITIES, who is to blame ?

The Western Universities or that bloody religion of Islam ?

Some people's thinking is so strange. Muslims with a University education commit acts of terrorism. Muslims without a University education commit acts of terrorism. So ... lets redefine "well educated" to mean thinking critically about religion and claim that the common factor is that "uneducated" commit acts of terrorism

"Well-educated" implies, among other things, the ability to rationally think about one's own religion.

Fact: Many Islamic Terrorists were college educated !

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/opinion/14bergen.html?_r=0

"We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering. In the four attacks for which the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational levels is available - the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 - 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had received a college degree"

The 1993 attack on World Trade Center

"The 1993 World Trade Center attack involved 12 men, all of whom had a college education"

Of the 9/11 attack

"The 9/11 pilots, as well as the secondary planners identified by the 9/11 commission, all attended Western universities, a prestigious and elite endeavor for anyone from the Middle East. Indeed, the lead 9/11 pilot, Mohamed Atta, had a degree from a German university in, of all things, urban preservation, while the operational planner of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, studied engineering in North Carolina . We also found that two-thirds of the 25 hijackers and planners involved in 9/11 had attended college"

They were educated in colleges in America as well as in Europe. If they still can't THINK RATIONALLY after getting their college education in WESTERN UNIVERSITIES, who is to blame ?

The Western Universities or that bloody religion of Islam ?

Uneducated single mothers living in slums with 5+ kids should just get a better job. Advice from a white guy sitting in a suburban home in front of his expensive computer.

That doesn't have anything to do with reality. The single mother with 5+ kids is a Republican fantasy. (You forgot to say that she's black.) Most welfare mothers have two or three children like anybody else. A lot of them wind up on welfare because their husband gets divorced, and doesn't keep up with child support payments.

Kathryn Edin actually followed welfare mothers around and went over their budgets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Edin They do get jobs. Most of them were working in addition to welfare. You can't survive on welfare.

Paul Krugman just had a column in the NYT on why Republicans want to make the poor suffer. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/opinion/krugman-enemies-of-the-poor.html

An interesting theory, but I think it goes to prove once more that Christie doesn't like the fact that people commute to New York for work. Remember when he shut down a financed infrastructure project that would have helped the economy immensely and would have reduced road traffic -- well, until he shut it down based on fake reasons and outright lies? I'm talking about the second railway tunnel crossing the Hudson, for those to ADS to remember.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/nyregion/report-disputes-christies-reason-for-halting-tunnel-project-in-2010.html

No doubt Hydro changes ecosystems, but unless you are damming very large rivers and endangering fish runs, the ecosystem changes are not significantly different than what was there, (larger lakes where smaller ones were).

The single most significant impact seems to be on certain species of ocean going fish.
As often as not fish and bird populations are improved by lakes forming upstream of dams.

The alleged damage is merely change, and not irreversible change, but some people won't accept any change.
They bitch long and loud about it while sitting in their houses built on huge tracts covering vast regions of prime farmland, prairies and forest.

In many regions, we are tearing out no longer needed dams:

Cool Video Condit Dam: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/environment-news/us-condit-dam-breach-vin/
Time lapse Elwa Dam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUZE7kgXKJc
NYT Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/us/30dam.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Maine: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/us/maine-dam-removal-a-start-to-restoring-spawning-grounds.html

No doubt Hydro changes ecosystems, but unless you are damming very large rivers and endangering fish runs, the ecosystem changes are not significantly different than what was there, (larger lakes where smaller ones were).

The single most significant impact seems to be on certain species of ocean going fish.
As often as not fish and bird populations are improved by lakes forming upstream of dams.

The alleged damage is merely change, and not irreversible change, but some people won't accept any change.
They bitch long and loud about it while sitting in their houses built on huge tracts covering vast regions of prime farmland, prairies and forest.

In many regions, we are tearing out no longer needed dams:

Cool Video Condit Dam: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/environment-news/us-condit-dam-breach-vin/
Time lapse Elwa Dam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUZE7kgXKJc
NYT Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/us/30dam.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Maine: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/us/maine-dam-removal-a-start-to-restoring-spawning-grounds.html

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I am reasonably sure that Germany would exit the EU if such a program was installed.

The German Prism: Berlin Wants to Spy Too

Same is true for France. They say that France is one of the few countries who does democracy right.

France - Alarm over massive spying provisions in new military programming law

Hell, in France they will burn an entire city over a small issue.

You're getting warm.

Some 1,067 cars set ablaze across France on New Year's Eve
France's Less Joyous New Year's Tradition

More than 40,000 vehicles are burned each year in France...

Any ideas on what might be going on? (I don't want to issue a spoiler just yet.)

Everyone seems to be missing this one, the post at Krugman's blog where he quotes John R Levine: An Ubernerd Weighs In: He's essentially impressed with the technical achievements of bitcoin, and argues that his fellow techies are drunk on the achievement, and missing the fact that it's not really good for much.

And why exactly should the government (ie those of us who pay tax) subsidise someone consuming drugs and alcohol?

Ah, get over yourself. Why should they subsidize fuel, house ownership, exporting businesses and a ton of other things? Yet they do.

And i have yet to meet someone claiming benefits who doesn't smoke.

Hey, you are British, I assume? Look up this book of a countryman of yours, George Orwell. No, not the more famous book, but "Down and out in Paris and London". He does a good literary job of explaining why the poor smoke. It might even be able to get through to you, who've apparently never had a tough day in your life.

If you want a more experimental/scientific explanation of what Orwell describes, take a look at this classic NYT article.

I"m not a hater, I just understand the problem with Bitcoin. How about you zealots actual answer the hard question about currency?
How does it hold value? hint: it doesn't. If you reply is to say 'how does any currency store value' then you should even be having a discussion becasue you do not understand what you are talking about.

read this and then answer the question that must be answered to have a currency worth a damn. No expert in bitcoin has been able to answer them.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil/?_r=0

This doesn't mean a crypto currency can't be created to meat the necessary criteria that currencies must have if they are to exist for a reasonable length of time.
Bitcoin is not it, for very logical reasons.

• Education: "In 1987, public colleges and universities received 3.3 times as much in revenue from state and local governments as they did from students. They now receive about 1.1 times as much from states and localities as from students." cite
• Pay: "The minimum wage of $1.60 an hour in 1968 would be $10.56 today when adjusted for inflation (cite).
• Federal Benefits: "As one can see, even single men, who get back the lowest amount of benefits for their Medicare contributions, receive almost three times what they pay in..." cite.
• And finally, the Bottom Line: "The wealth gap between younger and older Americans has stretched to the widest on record, worsened by a prolonged economic downturn that has wiped out job opportunities for young adults and saddled them with housing and college debt. The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday. While people typically accumulate assets as they age, this wealth gap is now more than double what it was in 2005 and nearly five times the 10-to-1 disparity a quarter-century ago, after adjusting for inflation." (cite)

Similarly, I would recommend David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter" about the Korean War. Only a few years after the WWII triumph on two fronts, the US was completely unprepared in Korea and woefully led. Military reductions played a role but careerism within the military, and particularly toadyism within MacArthur's staff, was even more to blame. The book helped inform me about this little-remembered war and political era in the US.

NY Times review: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Frankel-t.html?pagewanted=all

I worked for a union employment lawyer (no police), so I have a certain sympathy for the employee and I know how important it is to get both sides. Furthermore, I had a neighbor who was a cop who (story too long to give here) demonstrated enough courage, cool-headedness and restraint in a shootout to make me really admire him.

However, in New York City, I must say that many and probably most of the cops are pigs -- they violate the law, arrest innocent people, and occasionally kill them. When they do, they almost always get off. It's hard to think of a cop who has been prosecuted, and harder to think of a cop who has gone to jail. (The only exception is drug crimes, and felonies like rape.)

New York City just settled most of the lawsuits coming out of the Republican convention http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/nyregion/12video.html for something like $15 million. That's because they arrested people (many of whom had nothing to do with the demonstrations in the first place), charged them with crimes they never committed, and charged them with further felonies of resisting arrest which they didn't do either, because they knew they could force most people into falsely pleading guilty rather than go through the expensive, time-consuming and risky legal challenges.

The cases were thrown out, because the defendants discovered videotapes, by bystanders and by cops themselves, that demonstrated beyond a doubt that the cops had committed perjury in their sworn statements. These cops were never prosecuted for perjury.

These abuses just go on and on in New York City. During the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, inspector Anthony Bolognia fired the pepper spray heard round the world. He wasn't fired, much less prosecuted for what was legally an assault, and an abuse of government power, against a person who was exercising her First Amendment rights.

There were also cases of cops who killed civilians, without justification, and weren't prosecuted.

There are also internal disciplinary proceedings which seem to be a sham.

I realize that the cops on the beat are being pushed to do it by their officers. But who else would get off on an excuse like that? If you're being forced to violate the law, you should quit your job and go public.

Yes, you're going to say that most cops are good cops, and these are only a small percentage. (I worked for employment lawyers, and that's what they would have said.) That's not true. The overwhelming majority of cops are like that, in the public record and in my personal experience. The honest cops are a small minority, I'd guess maybe 1%, 10% tops.

During the Knapp Commission hearings, they got a cop to testify in exchange for a plea bargain. He said that an honest cop is a guy who brings his own sandwich for lunch. (Rather than getting a free meal in a restaurant.) Back in those days, there were very few cops who brought their own sandwiches for lunch.

"Among the grim litany of revelations was a blackmail letter F.B.I. agents had sent anonymously to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., threatening to expose his extramarital affairs if he did not commit suicide."

From the NY Times Article

The corollary to the "you shouldn't worry if you don't have anything to hide" argument apparently is "you'd better not ever have anything to hide or the government will use it against you".

They came forward as a show of support for Snowden.

That appears to be false, unless you can point to something more direct.

Burglars Who Took On F.B.I. Abandon Shadows

Mr. Forsyth, now 63, and other members of the group can no longer be prosecuted for what happened that night, and they agreed to be interviewed before the release this week of a book written by one of the first journalists to receive the stolen documents. The author, Betty Medsger, a former reporter for The Washington Post, spent years sifting through the F.B.I.’s voluminous case file on the episode and persuaded five of the eight men and women who participated in the break-in to end their silence.

The article and video discuss similarities, but I don't believe that either attributes the motivation as support for Snowden. It appears to be directly tied to the book coming out.

It's even more useful to compare costs with other countries, especially rich western European nations where the cost-of-living is even higher than here in the US. Here's an article about a guy who flew to Belgium to have a hip transplant done out-of-pocket because it was so much cheaper than doing it in the US, even though the artificial hip joint implant was made here in the US, but only cost maybe a thousand dollars in Belgium, whereas it costs $15,000 here in the US, which is what he paid to have the whole procedure done in Belgium, including airfare and a hospital stay!

Yes, $55K for an appendectomy sounds like a lot of money, but lots of people will rationalize it thinking "doctors are paid a lot and hospitals are expensive, so that must be a reasonable price for that", but it's simply not true, and you can tell because it doesn't cost anywhere near that to get the same thing done in western Europe, even though most things over there are a lot more expensive than they are here and the overall cost of living is much higher than most parts of the US. I don't know offhand what an appendectomy costs in Belgium, but if the NYT article is any indication, you can probably have it done there for less than $10K, including airfare.

according to this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/technology/the-pentagon-as-start-up-incubator.html

he was an air force pilot, iam sure some of the real Air force guys here can verify that he did indeed serve, wonder what company he was in ?

so many liars and fakers you gotta be careful

A problem was seen, laws were passed.

Indeed:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60B14F7345F13738DDDA10894DA405B848DF1D3

I enjoy discussing economics.
Particularly with Randians, but mostly because their laissez faire ideas have been tried, tested, and discarded on the ash heap of history.
So it's not really a fair debate when they've already lost before the discussion has begun.

Something leads me to believe, you'd consider "because John Keynes said so" acceptable, if not outright praise-worthy...

All economic theories have something to offer, if only as an example of what not to do.
Even Marx turned out to be right about a few things.

But I'd say it's fairly obvious that no one economic theory is 100% right for 100% of circumstances.
I'd even say it's dangerous to get stuck in one economic framework (hi Alan Greenspan) and not take reality into account.

As for Keynes, his theory forms the basis of mainstream economics, but it's been extensively modified with ideas from many other theories.
Econ 101 even teaches bits from the Austrian school, which has otherwise been marginalized by mainstream economic theory.

If you want real world examples, it's fairly easy to compare what happened to countries that decided austerity was a better idea than stimulating demand.
You can also look at the history of America, where a titan of industry and monopolist, Mr. J.P. Morgan, personally stepped in to resolve the financial panic of 1907.
He then went on to endorse the Federal Reserve Bank, which has done a decent job of quieting the boom and bust cycles that once caused such chaos.

TLDR: Not really. Keynes wrote his original theory during a crisis and most of what he said is less useful outside that particular type of crisis circumstance.

The first thing the government's lawyers would try to do is to get as much damning evidence as possible defined as state secrets. That prevents the evidence from being introduced in court or used as the basis for a decision or finding. They've done this before, see this story, for example. For a breakdown of the various types of secrets and how they are handled in a court see this piece which is part of a series on Ibrahim vs DHS, the first challenge on a "no-fly" order to make trial.

Changing the emphasis doesn't amount to much: if the FDA is not conducting, or compelling companies to conduct, sufficiently rigorous safety assessments prior to the marketing of a GMO product and instead presumes such products to be safe until evidence to the contrary arises, they are failing their responsibility to protect consumers. Of course the FDA retains its enforcement powers; my complaint is their being reactive instead of proactive.

Sorry if my selections were unsatisfactory--I didn't think /. would appreciate the whole text. My concerns then, in general terms, are:

1) The FDA permits companies themselves to make the determination of whether the genes introduced by GM are "generally regarded as safe" (GRAS). When companies determine GM modifications are GRAS (and I'm unaware of an instance they haven't), those foods are exempt from the food additive regulations.
2) Regulatory authority is, as you point out, split across the FDA, USDA and EPA. Each of the agencies only considers a subset of a proposed product. In the case of Bt potatoes, for instance, the FDA doesn't care about the Bt protein since it's a pesticide and therefore the EPA's problem. The EPA figures the original potato was safe and the Bt protein is safe, therefore the new Bt potato is safe. Interestingly, when it comes to labeling, the potato is back to being considered food and the FDA regs prohibit labeling of pesticides so Bt potatoes are anonymous when sold.
3) When GMO crops are evaluted, they are not done so with sufficient rigor. Consider again the Bt potato: the EPA supposedly tested the effects of Bt on mice but they didn't feed the mice Bt potatoes, they fed them pure Bt. If complications arose in the production of the protein within the potato itself, they couldn't have known.

How's that for process? Does the USDA do better? That second link you provided describes how the USDA 'streamlined' its regulations in order to "reduce the length of the petition process by more than 50 percent". I don't consider that an improvement.

Ultimately, though, you bring up the trump card: regulatory authority. I have no doubts whatsoever this will result in litigation which ultimately sees the ban struck down.

Ever hear of weeds evolving?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Selective breeding relies on random changes to DNA. Over the past 60 years, we've accelerated the process through mutation breeding. That involves exposing plant tissues or seeds to radiation or mutagenic chemicals. Many of our most popular crop varietals have been generated this way, and are often grown and cheerfully marketed as 'organic'.

In contrast, genetically engineered plants have been modified at specific points on their DNA, incorporating known sequences of DNA that code for specific desired changes.

Which seems safer to you? A randomly scrambled DNA that, for all anyone knows, also expresses a slow cumulative poison, or a specifically modified DNA that expresses exactly the intended change with no other alterations?

The organic food industry, unable to succeed by running the race better, faster or smarter, now seeks to win by tripping the other runners. The whole anti-GMO effort is without scientific merit, and is simply a calculated money-grab by the organic food industry. Unfortunately, this shambling anti-GMO monster created by the organic food industry is now killing people by the hundreds of thousands.

On December 19, 2013, Molycorp started up their rare earths separation plant. It's in Mountain Pass, California. So now there's a US source.

It's not that the US lacks rare earth metal resources. It's that, until recently, China was a cheaper supplier. Then the goverment of China tried to keep the price up and insisted that Chinese companies sell motors and other completed products, not raw materials. Some rare earth metal prices shot up by a factor of 20. So the Mountain Pass mine, closed in 2002, was cranked up again, this time with new equjpiment better pollution controls.

Pollution controls for a rare earth mine are a big deal. "Rare earths" are present in low concentrations, which means that a mine generates a small amount of product and huge amounts of toxic sludge. The big rare earths mine in China has the world's largest sludge pond, and it leaks. This created an environmental disaster area for tens of kilometers around. Villages have had to be evacuated because of sludge pond leaks. The Mountain Pass, California mine is less than a mile from I-15 between Barstow and Las Vegas. The US EPA, California regulatory authorities, and the Sierra Club all had to be satisfied that this project wouldn't create a big mess. That was done.

Now Molycorp complains that smuggling of rare earths out of China is pushing the price down, but they're digging them up, processing, and shipping them. Problem solved.

If you think the magnet thing is bad, how do you feel about G.E. to Share Jet Technology With China in New Joint Venture? No dual use there, right? An easy field to develop expertise in, right? Which explains why the three major Western jet engine manufacturers (GE, Pratt-Whitney and Rolls-Royce), have been in control of the field since WWII. This is not something you figure out overnight. It's also no secret that jet engines are the biggest obstacle to developing "all Chinese" fighters.

It's not accurate. The Fast Track authority the administration seeks would effectively permit Congress to abrogate it's responsibility in this matter. If granted Fast Track, the procedure becomes as outlined below (see wikipedia page on fast track) . As you can see it's only needs a simple majority and amputates discussion severly along with preventing anyone from filibustering it since if time expires without a vote, it passes automatically.

This is what Obama wants and his college crony Michael Froman want to do to us. Michael Froman is a piece of work. He had "some trouble" being confirmed as USTR because he at the time he was nominated he was hiding somewhere above 500,000 in a Cayman Islands tax haven . People who know him say that he's extremely cold and sarcastic and just basically your typical inside the beltway psychopath "player".

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/us/politics/trade-nominee-has-500000-in-cayman-islands.html?_r=0

According to a 2011 financial document, Mr. Froman held $490,845 in a fund managed by Citigroup and based in Grand Cayman's Ugland House, a modest whitewashed building that has been widely cited as a symbol of tax avoidance since it is home to nearly 19,000 business entities seeking favorable tax treatment.

In answers to Finance Committee questions, Mr. Froman said on May 17 that he still held those assets but would sell them off within 90 days of confirmation as trade representative.

Mr. Grassley said the president once called the Ugland House "the biggest tax scam in the world."

âoeYet he nominated two top advisers in a row who invested in the Ugland House,â Mr. Grassley said. âoeHe also nominated a commerce secretary with significant offshore income.â

You can rest assured if he can get this through he'll spend the rest of his days be richly rewarded by the corporations whom he's helping to bring establish a draconian IP regime , including things like "patents software as such" and "patenting mathematics as such"

From the leaked agreement:

http://www.techblog.co.nz/601-NZsPatentsActunderthreatbyTransPacificPartnership

[MX propose: (d) and the diagrams, plans, rules and methods for carrying out mental processes, playing games or doing business, and mathematical methods as such; software as such; methods to present information as such; and aesthetic creations and artistic or literary works.]

So in short, the US appears to be proposing that all of these things should be explicitly patentable - overriding New Zealand's recent Patents Act and similar laws being discussed around the world. Everyone else is saying they could be excluded. ...the US also appears to be pushing for the forced patentability of mathematical methods, methods of presenting information and even literary works...

In early 2012, the Obama administration indicated that renewal of the authority is a requirement for the conclusion of Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) negotiations, which have been undertaken as if the authority were still in effect.[11] In July 2013, Michael Froman, the newly confirmed U.S. Trade Representative, renewed efforts to obtain Congressional reinstatement of "fast track" authority. At nearly the same time, Senator Elizabeth Warren questioned Froman about the prospect of a secretly-negotiated, binding international agreement such as TPP that might turn out to supersede U.S. wage, safety, and environmental laws.[12] Other legislators expressed concerns about foreign currency manipulation, food safety laws, state-owned businesses, market access for small businesses, access to pharmaceutical products, and online commerce.[10

Try again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

There was an article right here on slashdot which served to announce the problem which had been speculated to happen eventually has been confirmed.

You mean like patents that expire after 20 years?

Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.

How is this different from what we have now, I insist and ask ?

The 60s were different in that they were one of the few times when there wasn't increasing inequality/joblesness - people married young and could hold on to a job for 50 years - which is the outlier, not the historical norm. Just look at the 19th century by comparison. For a bit more discussion, see here.

Having lived through that period, there was a general feeling that we could do anything: stop wars, have civil rights, go to the moon, end poverty by sharing as taught in the bible^W the Whole Earth Catalog. It was a dream, but a pretty good one. Even though the war in Iraq was as unjust and pointless as Vietnam, there was a lot less marching and rock-throwing. People seem to not believe that they can change things. I would call that a malaise.

Most divergent of all, he believed that increasing automatization of labor would spawn not inequality or joblessness, but spiritual malaise.

How is this different from what we have now, I insist and ask ?

The 60s were different in that they were one of the few times when there wasn't increasing inequality/joblesness - people married young and could hold on to a job for 50 years - which is the outlier, not the historical norm. Just look at the 19th century by comparison. For a bit more discussion, see here.

The summary links to four different commentaries but not Asimov's original article. I'd rather get it from the source.

Hope their space ship works better than their ice breaker ship.. Did we not already learn that chineese laborors don't particularly care about quality? *sigh* I sure hope the astronauts are not volentold as well..

Now to add to the "If dogs ran the world" internet meme [*], if dogs could do architecture, the orientation of the bathroom would be decided first, before anything else.

(holy, err, shit: I looked up "feng shui bathroom" and not only do those clowns talk about bathrooms, the first hit says "Bathrooms do tend to leak energy, as well as easily accumulate lower vibrations". Appropriately, that load of, well, shit, comes from "about.com").

[*] OK OK I know that the Internet is really made of cats but before the feline coup d'etat the dogs had staked out their claim for the internet ur-meme.

Because destroying what looks like decorative bamboo to an untrained eye is not anywhere close to what you described.

JFK customs inspectors removed and smashed eleven handmade flutes (or thirteen, according to some stories). That's not the level of destruction that should ever be allowed without multiple sign-offs by supervisors and speaking to the owner of those items to determine whether the items fall into one of the many, many exceptions to U.S. import laws (which they did). Anything less than that level of care clearly crosses the line into gross criminal negligence territory.

Do you really think a clarinet or violin would be seized and destroyed based on one story of decorative bamboo?

This same airport, back in 2006, seized and destroyed a grand piano valued at over two hundred thousand dollars and severely damaged a second one. This is not just a single story. U.S. Customs has a long history of destroying things.

For all their flaws, US security apparatus is quite competent at what it does, including capturing or killing those it's tasked with capturing or killing.

Not so sure that's true...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html?_r=0

The NSA admit they were wrong? Hell, when has anyone in government admitted they were wrong?

Just off the top of my head:

• In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert Strange McNamara.
• Bill Clinton Admits "I Was Wrong"
• Rumsfeld confesses he was wrong about WMDs in Iraq
• Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation
• .

What McNamara doesn't do is out himself as a sadistic tyrant bent on personal glory, so his book wasn't warmly received.

I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.

Do I need to attribute that?

When is the last time you admitted you never let the facts interfere with a cherished aspersion?

Oh, but wait ... these admissions don't count. Please, please, tell me why.

So you are totally skipping over the whole "lying to congress" thing as if its inconsequential?

That wasn't "lying to Congress," that was a stunt by a Senator Wyden . The record is clear that Congress was informed.

Wyden’s Stunt Was Congress at its Worst

Snowden may have pulled the curtain away to reveal what was suspected with regards to who spies on who, but in doing so he also showed that the intelligence services were out of control and arrogant in their stance.

The intelligence agencies are performing the mission given to them by Congress & the President, and are seeking information requested by other parts of the government. At best Snowden is a vigilante that overthrows the rule of law governing the intelligence agencies and has already caused immense damage to the US intelligence effort. At worst he may be the most damaging spy ever in US history.

General Benedict Arnold only offered to give away one fort, Snowden has stolen the "keys to the kingdom" and is on track to severely damage US intelligence for decades to come. The view of Britain's spymaster in the colonies, Major Beckwith, was that ''Washington did not really outfight the British; he simply outspied us!'' Had Snowden acted in the 1770s Washington would not have been able to outspy the British, the practically certain outcome of that would have been for the Colonists to lose their fight. Had the Colonists lost their fight it is quite likely that Washington, Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, et. al would have been hung, and the Constitution of the United States with the Bill of Rights would never have been written. Make your choice, cheer Snowden, or cheer the Constitution, you can't cheer both. Snowden's very acts strike against the Constitution itself and the principles of democratic, representative government.
'
Now as is the custom, I must receive my -1 flamebait/-1 troll moderations since my worlds must not be seen or debated in a free society.

I don't know why you've been moderated troll, but here's a link for you.

Before I give my list, everybody should watch Thug Notes.
Its like spark's note's summary and analysis, but gangster.
The summary is hilarious and the analysis is SPOT ON,
actually quite brilliant. He's got quite a great list reads so far:

Thug Notes

As for my list:
Breakfast of Champions
Lolita
Catch-22
Sirens of Titan
The Sun Also Rises
The Great Gatsby
Slaughterhouse 5
Crime and Punishment
Notes from Underground
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Princess Bride
1984
Anna Karenina
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Candide
Don Quixote
I could go on player

And BTW, reading literary fiction (not bullshit fiction or nonfiction) has been shown to help your brain and empathetic abilities:
For Better Social Skills, Read a Little Chekhov

and storytelling is one of the most effective forms of communication:
The Neurocience of Storytelling

Actually, this has been done to the likes of Gibson Guitars. So this case is not unique.

Still, I'm not sure on what basis the "agricultural product" was removed and destroyed. How the hell did they know what those reeds were made with or where they were from?

And similar things have happened in other cases:
Gibson Guitar got raided over wood, among others.

You need to check your facts. The government didn't create employer health care plans. The market did. Now don't get me wrong, the market was reacting to a different government intervention (namely WWII wage freezes), but there is no law that says,"Companies with more than N employees, must offer health insurance."

The reason why the ACA didn't move towards single-payer model (like most (yes, capitalist) countries) is that employers and insurance companies do not want that. Insurance companies don't want competition that would actually provide coverage, and employers like the fact that employees are indentured to them for health coverage. Make no mistake, the individual mandate, and no single payer is the Republican plan. In fact, it was famously the opposing position to the Clinton health care plan (aka "Hillarycare").